American democracy, freedom, and human rights are all relative.

Democracy, freedom, human rights, etc., these words themselves have no class character, and the different people, classes, interest groups or countries who use these words often stand on different positions and endow them with Different or even completely opposite meanings. Therefore, in the field of political philosophy and democratic political theory, when it comes to some words and expressions often used in Western developed capitalist countries, we must first not make the mistakes of the past "leftists" and criticize and reject everything. But we cannot Completely let down your guard, copy everything without any analysis, and fall into the Western-dominated discourse system. The correct attitude should be to conduct in-depth research and dialectical analysis to clarify its exact meaning, and then determine which ones can be directly learned and used, which ones need to be analyzed and transformed, and which ones need to be rejected and resisted. This is especially true for basic concepts such as democracy, freedom, and human rights.

For a long time, the United States has been the largest economic, political, cultural, technological and military entity on our planet. In many aspects such as politics, economy and culture, some discourse systems are often invented and dominated by the United States. and monopoly. We must have a clear understanding of this. Looking back at the origin and development of bourgeois theories of democracy, freedom, and human rights will help us understand the theories of democracy, freedom, and human rights of the international monopoly bourgeoisie headed by the United States today. It will also help us understand the so-called "universal nature of democracy." sex".

The theories of democracy, freedom, and human rights of today’s international monopoly bourgeoisie, led by the United States, are the inheritance and development of the theories of freedom, equality, and fraternity of the bourgeoisie in the era of free capital. Liberty, equality and fraternity were the political slogans put forward by the French bourgeoisie during its revolutionary period in the 18th century. In essence, this is the reflection in the political field of the principles of free trade and equivalent exchange in capitalist commodity production. At that time, this slogan was of great significance in getting rid of the shackles of feudal royal power and theocracy and striving for political freedom, democracy and equality. It not only played a role in calling on, motivating and uniting the revolutionary masses to launch an attack on feudal rule during the French bourgeois revolution, but also had a wide-ranging worldwide influence. However, this slogan also has great class limitations. While Marx pointed out that the slogan of freedom, equality and fraternity has anti-feudal and progressive significance, he always pointed out the great deception of this slogan. He pointed out that the essence of this slogan is that the bourgeoisie pursues its own interests, protects and Expand the private property of the bourgeoisie and consolidate the political and economic systems on which the bourgeoisie depends for its survival.

As they continue to develop and grow, the bourgeoisie of various countries have embarked on the road of aggression and expansion. While they are expanding their territory, establishing colonies, and expanding their scope of interests, they are also expanding their political systems and ideologies. Bourgeois ideas such as democracy, freedom, equality, and fraternity, as well as the bourgeois political and economic systems formulated thereby, also moved to the world. ??

The United States is a rising star in the above-mentioned acts of aggression and expansion. Penetrating foreign political systems and ideologies is not just a special habit of some American rulers, but has deep economic, political and cultural roots. The vast majority of Americans call themselves or are Christians. Eisenhower once said: "Acknowledging the existence of God is the first and most basic expression of the American spirit. Without God, there would be no American political system and no American way of life." Dollars circulating around the world On the currency, there are also statements such as "In God We Trust" printed on it. Therefore, with the exception of two short speeches during Washington's second inauguration, almost all inaugural addresses of American presidents talked about God. Fundamentally and essentially, the so-called "God" is a servant who serves the fundamental economic interests of the American bourgeois monopoly group and the state and government. This is a distinctive feature of the American national ideology. Another characteristic is that the upper echelons of all walks of life in the United States are also convinced that the United States is the "New Jerusalem" and that Americans are "God's choice" and "God's chosen ones" and shoulder the responsibility given by God to promote their own values ????and political systems to the world. A global mission.

As early as World War I, U.S. President Wilson declared that democracy is an important guiding principle because it represents a new domestic order, which of course can also be applied to the international order. ; New liberal democracy will be one of the important exports of the United States, and it is necessary to ensure that democracy is accessible throughout the world.

After the end of World War II, CIA Director George Kennan and Secretary of State Dulles successively proposed the theory of "peaceful evolution", but the US authorities did not pay enough attention to it. After experiencing the defeats in the Korean War and the Vietnam War, which mainly used "hard power", the United States has further understood the importance of "soft power" such as democracy, freedom, and human rights.

The change in U.S. foreign strategy from worshiping "hard power" to focusing on the use of "soft power" is forced. This turning point occurred during the Nixon administration. At the end of 1968, Nixon was elected as the 37th President of the United States. At this time, the United States has 1 million troops stationed in 30 countries around the world and provides military or economic assistance to nearly 100 countries around the world. Coupled with the nearly six-year Vietnam War, its financial and economic situation has gradually declined, and the balance of payments has been in crisis, and the United States has been overwhelmed. In early 1969, Nixon said in his inaugural speech: "After a period of confrontation, we are entering an era of negotiation." "The greatest honor that history can bestow on us is the title of peacemaker." "We invite those who have A peaceful contest between people who might be our opponents”. The severe situation forced the Nixon administration to take three major measures of "peaceful competition", that is, "peaceful contest". The first was to decide to gradually normalize relations with New China; the second was to gradually withdraw troops from Vietnam; the third was to end the Bretton Woods financial system. Abandon the fixed exchange rate system. It can be said that these three "peaceful contest" measures are key moves for the United States to use its "soft power" to save and revive its hegemony. In a certain sense, ending the Bretton Woods financial system and allowing the U.S. dollar to "freely" serve as an international currency played a crucial role in the decades-long U.S. economic prosperity.

Although Nixon resigned due to the "Watergate Incident", his successor Ford inherited his ideological legacy. At the end of July 1975, 35 countries (33 European countries plus the United States and Canada) held the European Conference on Security and Cooperation in Helsinki, the capital of Finland, and adopted the final document of the CSCE, also known as the "Helsinki Agreement." The agreement was the product of détente and compromise between the United States and the Soviet Union, and the policy objectives of both countries were achieved in the agreement. The "Helsinki Agreement" stipulates that the status quo of European borders formed after World War II cannot be destroyed. This means that the United States and Europe recognize the Soviet Union's "hard power." "respect" fundamental freedoms, including freedom of thought, morality, religion or belief, and expand personnel exchanges between the Eastern and Western camps. For the Soviet Union, this essentially legitimized the United States' use of so-called "human rights" and other issues to interfere in the Soviet Union's internal affairs and support and foster opposition forces within Soviet society. So far, Western countries have used the provisions stipulated in the agreement to provide various supports to the Soviet "dissidents". This kind of support includes material and financial support, as well as "honor" and so-called "moral" support. In a certain sense, it can even be said that this opened a key channel for the future disintegration of the Soviet Union and the collapse of the Soviet Union.

After the Carter administration came to power in 1977, it clearly regarded human rights as the main goal of a country's foreign policy, and in the name of so-called safeguarding of human rights, it interfered wantonly in the internal affairs of other countries, especially socialist countries.

After the end of the Cold War, it became possible for the United States to dominate the world. Bush, who was in the transition period from the Cold War to the post-Cold War, made "innovations and developments" in the United States' "foreign human rights theory." Bush said: "Promote the development of free and democratic political institutions as the most reliable guarantee of human rights and economic and social projects." On January 20, 1989, Bush emphasized in his second inaugural address: "Our desire More than our pocketbooks, but we need wishes”. How to resolve this contradiction, Bush added: "If the United States is not committed to noble moral principles, then she will never be a complete United States. The American people today have such a goal, that is to make the face of the country more kind and make the world "Since then, the Bush administration has regarded supporting democracy and encouraging market economy as the two goals pursued by its foreign policy.

The drastic changes in Eastern Europe and the disintegration of the Soviet Union fully demonstrated the extreme importance of "soft power" such as democracy, freedom, and human rights for the United States to realize its strategy.

The Clinton administration believed that the Carter administration’s human rights policy was for personal purposes, and that after the end of the Cold War, human rights should be promoted from a more basic level, democracy.

Based on this, the Clinton administration regarded improving U.S. security, developing the U.S. economy and promoting democracy abroad as its three major national security goals, thus further clarifying that promoting democracy abroad has been elevated to the level of national security strategy.

In order to adapt to the needs of the United States to promote power politics and hegemonism, the U.S. government and scholars have also made substantial changes to the definition of human rights through the sublimation of its practical understanding by the Bush and Clinton administrations. The view that "human rights are matters within the scope of sovereignty" gradually gave way to the proposition that "human rights are higher than sovereignty." Therefore, after the end of the Cold War, human rights were further regarded as an important tool for the United States to promote its democratic strategy around the world.

It should be noted that after the end of the Cold War, a new round of larger-scale economic globalization swept the world. This makes democracy, freedom, human rights and neoliberalism that serve freedom of competition, trade and financial freedom appear to have a broader so-called "universal character". Therefore, the United States' worship of "hard power" has been rekindled. As a result, the United States fought four major local wars in the Gulf, Yugoslavia, Afghanistan and Iraq. The first three games were relatively smooth, and the start of the fourth game was also very smooth. On January 20, 2002, when George W. Bush took office in his first term, he was quite energetic. He said at the inauguration ceremony: "The United States is backed by strong national strength and will move forward courageously"; "If we do not lead the cause of peace, then peace will have no one to lead it." At this time, the United States wanted to use "hard power" to "share" "democracy" with everyone, but it ended up in a bloody mess.

The lesson of worshiping "hard power" made George W. Bush return to attaching importance to "soft weapons" such as "democracy". In a certain sense, the deliverer of "soft weapons" is Natan Sharansky, a former Soviet Jew who was sentenced to nine years in prison for assisting Soviet Jews to smuggle into Israel. He was once a famous dissident at that time. Political views. Sharansky wrote a book called "On Democracy: Conquering Tyranny and Terror through the Power of Freedom." The main point promoted in the book is that the world is divided into two categories, one is the "free society" and the other is the "fear society"; the former is "the force that promotes peace" and the latter is "the root cause of war and terror". Democracy is a universal value. As long as they have a choice, no people of any nation will choose to live under the rule of a dictator. "Fear states" and "authoritarian regimes" cannot rely on their own changes to move towards democracy. Western countries must link the ideals of Western values ????with Western countries' foreign policies and economic aid in order to achieve "victory." For the security of the free world, democracy should be supported by any means necessary. It is said that after Bush got the book at the end of his first term, he read it eagerly. After reading it, he praised the views expressed in the book: "If you want to understand my thoughts on foreign policy, you should go to Read Sharansky's book, this guy is a hero, it's a great book." Sharansky was also invited to the White House as a guest, and Bush also recommended the book to Secretary of State Rice. As a result, the book quickly became popular in the White House and American political and military circles. This makes American politicians feel as if they have found a compass on a lost ship, and the ignorant unilateralism has suddenly gained "spiritual guidance" and "motivation after shock."

After reading the book, Bush immediately made changes to his second inaugural address and State of the Union address. On January 20, 2005, Bush crammed more than 40 words such as "democracy," "freedom ideas," "democratic rights," and "free world" into his 20-minute second-term inaugural speech. "We know our weaknesses and we know their roots," he said. "We are guided by common sense and taught by history and have come to the conclusion that the survival of freedom in our land increasingly depends on it. Victory in other countries. The fervent desire for peace can only arise from the expansion of freedom in the world. "With this in mind, it is the policy of the United States to seek out and support democratic movements as they grow in all countries and in all cultural backgrounds. The institutionalization of democracy. The ultimate goal is the end of any totalitarian system in the world." "Those involved in democratic change who face repression, prisons, and exile should know that America knows your potential: you are the future leaders of free nations. "The United States and other Western countries mainly use democracy, freedom, and human rights as weapons. They only spent 4.6 billion US dollars to "successfully transform" the practices of the three Central Asian countries in Georgia, Ukraine, and Kyrgyzstan, making the United States pay more attention to democracy, freedom, and human rights. "Soft power".

On August 7, 2008, before leaving for the Beijing Olympics, U.S. President Bush made a speech in Bangkok, Thailand, on the United States’ attitude toward Asia-Pacific countries and regions: “I have made clear, candid, and consistent "The United States believes that the Chinese people should enjoy basic freedoms, which are the natural rights of all human beings." "I am optimistic about China's future in an environment where goods are freely traded." "Young people who have grown up under this environment will eventually demand the freedom to exchange ideas, especially on the unrestricted Internet." "Ultimately, only China can decide what path it will take and the United States and its partners will take a realistic approach." , prepare for various possibilities.”

The United States and other Western countries desperately promote their ideas such as democracy, freedom, and human rights to the outside world. In the final analysis, they are still doing it to safeguard and expand their economic and political interests.

From the end of World War II until the early 1970s, the Western world had a so-called golden age. During this period, the average annual economic growth rate of developed countries as a whole was as high as 4.4%. In the following 20 years (from the early 1970s to the early 1990s), the average annual economic growth rate was 2.2%. This has led to many optimistic ideas in the economics community, such as the conflict between labor and capital being resolved, the capitalist business cycle being flattened or even disappearing, and the economy achieving automatic and unlimited growth. This forms a strange cycle. Countries earn money from Americans through exports, and then buy U.S. stocks and bonds, lending money to Americans to spend. Americans spend money to support the economic growth of the United States and other countries. Dollars continue to flow to the world, and the world sends dollars back to the U.S. bond and stock markets. In 1948, global international reserves were US$47.8 billion. By 1970, before the disintegration of the Bretton Woods monetary system, they had grown to US$93.2 billion, with an average annual growth rate of 3% in 22 years. From US$93.2 billion at the beginning of 1971 to US$6,489.2 billion at the end of 2007, it increased approximately 70 times in 37 years, with an average annual growth of 12%. At the same time, global GDF only increased 16 times. In the past 10 years, the total amount of U.S. dollar currency printing has exceeded the total amount of printing in the past 40 years, and the growth of global official reserves has reached an astonishing 2 times. A $100 bill used to cost 3 cents to print; now it costs 6 cents. The United States purchases $100 worth of things overseas at a cost of 3 cents or 6 cents. However, developing countries are reluctant to spend the $100 they receive and often deposit it back in the United States. Since 1994, the U.S. trade deficit has increased year by year, reaching more than 300 billion U.S. dollars in 1999, while the foreign trade deficit has climbed to 883 billion U.S. dollars in 2006; in 1980, the U.S. fiscal deficit was 76.2 billion U.S. dollars, and from October 2008 The budget deficit for fiscal year 2009 will begin at $482 billion. This is the fundamental reason why the United States has been able to eat the world with its mouth open for a long time. The U.S. authorities always interpret this phenomenon as the superiority of the U.S. democratic system in order to further maintain the rule of their financial empire.

The economic globalization led by the United States and the democracy, freedom, human rights and neoliberalism they advocate have also caused the extreme disparity between rich and poor and the division of countries and nations around the world. The per capita income of the richest countries in the world is now more than 330 times higher than that of the poorest countries; the total foreign debt owed by the South to the North has surged from US$794 billion in 1991 to more than US$3 trillion currently. In just over 10 years, it has more than quadrupled. According to the United Nations' 2005 Human Development Report, the combined income of the world's 500 richest people is now greater than the combined income of the 416 million poorest people. It is the most basic strategic approach of Western powers to ultimately weaken third world countries through means such as democracy and freedom, human rights and neoliberalism.

However, the strategy adopted by the United States of using nothing (dollars) to buy high-quality and cheap goods cannot be sustained for a long time. If this continues, the United States will have more and more debt, its trade deficit will become larger and larger, and the overall demand of the world economy will become increasingly sluggish. The only possible outcome of this vicious cycle is a world economic depression. People often confuse the relationship between market economy and neoliberalism, thinking that if a barrier-free market economy works within a country, a barrier-free market economy on an international scale should also work.

However, the prerequisite for the success of a market economy within a country is that the political one-person-one-vote can restrict the economic one-money-one-vote, so that the country's regional disparities and the gap between rich and poor can be effectively adjusted, and there are sufficient financial funds to build roads. , bridges, ports, and airports, can implement internally coordinated economic and civil and criminal laws, and can use fiscal and monetary policies to regulate the economic cycle. Without this premise, the market economy will lead to polarization, the prevalence of counterfeiting (bad money drives out good money), economic turmoil, disorder, and the inability of society to function. In the absence of a world government voted for by people all over the world, and on the premise that multinational corporations are not subject to the constraints of people's power, the protection of national economies by various countries is dismantled, the economic sovereignty of each country is abolished, and the economic logic of the law of the jungle is allowed to pass without obstacles. , can only lead to polarization and social unrest around the world. Isn’t the U.S. financial and even economic crisis that started in September 2008 spreading around the world?